2.1. General Background PA0 2.2. Solution Methods For Obtaining Oligosaccharides PA0 2.3. Solid-Phase Synthesis Of Oligosaccharides
The oligosaccharide chains of glycoproteins and glycolipids play important roles in a wide variety of biochemical processes. Found both at cell surfaces and circulating in biological fluids, these glycosidic residues act as recognition signals that mediate key events in normal cellular development and function. They are involved in fertilization, embryogenesis, neuronal development, hormonal activities, inflammation, cellular proliferation, and the organization of different cell types into specific tissues. They are also involved in intracellular sorting and secretion of glycoproteins as well as in the clearance of plasma glycoproteins from circulation.
In addition to their positive role in the maintenance of health, oligosaccharides are also involved in the onset of disease. For instance, oligosaccharides on cell surfaces function as receptors for viruses and toxins, as well as more benign ligands. Modified cell surface carbohydrates have been implicated in tumorigenesis and metastasis. The oligosaccharide structures that mediate inflammation and help prevent infection can, when produced at excessive levels, stimulate the development of chronic inflammatory disease. (Some references on the roles of oligosaccharides produced by eukaryotes in health and disease include: Hakomori, S. TIBS, 1984, 45; Feizi, T., et al., TIBS, 1985, 24; Rademacher, T. W. et al., Annu. Rev. Biochem. 1988, 57, 785; Feizi, T. TIBS, 1991, 84; Dennis, J. W.; Laferte, S. Cancer Res. 1985, 45, 6034; Fishman, P. H. J. Membr. Biol. 1982, 69, 85; Markwell, M. A. et al. PNAS USA, 1981, 78, 5406; Wiley, D. C.; Skehel, J. J. Annu. Rev. Biochem. 1987, 56, 365; Kleinman, H. et al. PNAS USA, 1979, 76, 3367; Walz, G.; Aruffo, A.; Kolanus, W.; Bevilacqua, M , Seed, B. Science 1990, 250.)
Although bacteria do not produce the same types of oligosaccharides or other glycoconjugates as eukaryotes, procaryotes nevertheless produce a wide variety of glycosylated molecules. Many such molecules have been isolated and found to have antitumor or antibiotic activity. Bacterially produced glycosylated molecules having potential therapeutic utility include chromomycin, calicheamicin, esperamicin, and the ciclamycins. In all these cases, the carbohydrates residues have been shown to be important to biological activity. However, the precise functions of the carbohydrate residues are not well understood and there is no understanding of structure-activity relationships.
Because of their diverse roles in health and disease, oligosaccharides have become a major focus of research. It is widely accepted that the development of technology to 1) detect and 2) block or otherwise regulate some of the abnormal functions of oligosaccharides would lead to significant improvements in health and well-being. Moreover, it should be possible to exploit some of the normal functions of oligosaccharides (e.g., various recognition processes) for other purposes, including drug delivery to specific cell types. In addition, it may be possible to develop new antitumor agents from synthetic glycosylated molecules reminiscent of glycosylated bacterial antitumor agents.
There are ongoing efforts to develop products related to oligosaccharides, including diagnostic kits for detecting carbohydrates associated with various diseases, vaccines to block infection by viruses that recognize cell surface carbohydrates, drug delivery vehicles that recognize carbohydrate receptors, and monoclonal antibodies, which recognize abnormal carbohydrates, for use as drugs. The timely development of these and other carbohydrate-based biomedical products depends in turn on the availability of technology to produce oligosaccharides and other glycoconjugates rapidly, efficiently, and in practical quantities for basic and developmental research.
In particular, there is a need for methods that permit the rapid preparation of glycosidic libraries comprising mixtures of various oligosaccharides or other glycoconjugates which could then be screened for a particular biological activity. It has been shown, for example, that screening of mixtures of peptides is an efficient way of identifying active compounds and elucidating structure-activity relationships. There are numerous ways to generate chemically diverse mixtures of peptides and determine active compounds (See, for example, Furka et al. Int. J. Peptide Protein Res. 1992, 37, 487; Lam et al. Nature 1991, 354, 82; Houghten, R. A. Nature 1991, 354, 84; Zuckermann, R. N. et al. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 1992, 89, 4505. Petithory, J. R. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, 1991, 88, 11510. Geyse, H. M. et al. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, 1984, 81, 3998. Houghten, R. A.; Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, 1985, 82, 5131; Fodor et al. Science 1991, 251, 767.) We are not aware of effective methods to generate diverse mixtures of oligosaccharides and other glycoconjugates for screening purposes.
There are currently two general ways to obtain oligosaccharides. The first is by isolation from natural sources. This approach is limited to naturally occurring oligosaccharides that are produced in large quantities. The second way is through enzymatic or chemical synthesis. The variety of oligosaccharides available through enzymatic synthesis is limited because the enzymes used can only accept certain substrates. Chemical synthesis is more flexible than enzymatic synthesis and has the potential to produce an enormous variety of oligosaccharides. The problem with chemical synthesis has been that it is extremely expensive in terms of time and labor. This problem is a consequence of the way in which the chemical synthesis of oligosaccharides has been carried out to date.
Oligosaccharides are formed from monosaccharides connected by glycosidic linkages. In a typical chemical synthesis of an oligosaccharide, a fully protected glycosyl donor is activated and allowed to react with a glycosyl acceptor (typically another monosaccharide having an unprotected hydroxyl group) in solution. The glycosylation reaction itself can take anywhere from a few minutes to days, depending on the method used. The coupled product is then purified and chemically modified to transform it into a glycosyl donor. The chemical modification may involve several steps, each single step requiring a subsequent purification. (A "single step" is defined as a chemical transformation or set of transformations carried out in a "single" reaction vessel without the need for intermediate isolation or purification steps.) Each purification is time consuming and can result in significant losses of material. The new glycosyl donor, a disaccharide, is then coupled to another glycosyl acceptor. The product is then isolated and chemically modified as before. It is not unusual for the synthesis of a trisaccharide to require ten or more steps from the component monosaccharides. In one recent example (See, Suzuki, K. et al. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 1990, 112, 8895.), the fully protected trisaccharide side chain of an antitumor antibiotic called ciclamycin 0 was synthesized in 14 steps with a 9% yield based on the component monosaccharides. Thus, the time and expense involved in the synthesis of oligosaccharides has been a serious obstacle to the development of carbohydrate drugs and other biomedical products.
One way to increase the speed and efficiency of oligosaccharide synthesis is to develop methods that permit the construction of multiple glycosidic linkages in a single step. Before the present discovery, the applicants are unaware of a one-step method which involves the regioselective formation of multiple glycosidic bonds and which provides a rapid, efficient and high yield process for the production of oligosaccharides.
Besides reducing the number of steps involved in the synthesis of oligosaccharides, one can also increase the speed and efficiency of a synthetic process by eliminating the need for isolation and purification. Theoretically, elimination of the need for isolation and purification could be achieved by developing a solid-phase process for the synthesize of oligosaccharides.
Due to the magnitude of the potential advantages of solid-phase synthesis, there have been previous attempts to synthesize oligosaccharides on a solid phase. Solid-phase methods for synthesis make isolation and purification unnecessary because excess reagents and decomposition products can simply be washed away from the resin-bound product. This advantage translates into an enormous savings in terms of time, labor, and yield. (The advantages of solid-phase methods over solution methods for the synthesis of peptides and nucleic acids have been amply demonstrated. These advantages would, of course, extend to a solid-phase synthesis of oligosaccharides. For the solid-phase synthesis of peptides, see, for example, Barany, G. and Merrifield, R. B. 1980, in The Peptides, Gross, E. and Meienhofer, J. Eds., Academic Press, New York, Vol 2, pp. 1-284.)
As far back as 1971, Frechet and Schuerch outlined the requirements for solid-phase oligosaccharide synthesis (Frechet, J. M.; Schuerch, C.; J. Am. Chem. Soc. 1971, 93,492). First, the resin must be compatible with the reaction conditions. Second, the solid support must contain appropriate functionality to provide a link to the glycosidic center (or elsewhere), which link is inert to the reaction conditions but can be easily cleaved to remove the oligosaccharide upon completion of the synthesis. Third, appropriate protecting group schemes must be worked out so that particular hydroxyls can be selectively unmasked for the next coupling reaction. The other hydroxyls should be protected by "permanent" blocking groups to be removed at the end of the synthesis. Fourth, the glycosylation reactions should be efficient, mild, and go to completion to avoid failure sequences. Fifth, the stereochemistry of the anomeric centers must be maintained during the coupling cycles and should be predictable based on the results obtained in solution for any given donor/acceptor pair. Sixth, cleavage of the permanent blocking groups and the link to the polymer must leave the oligosaccharide intact.
Unfortunately, although it has been generally accepted that solid-phase oligosaccharide synthesis is a desirable goal, and although Frechet and Schuerch (as well as others) were able to outline a strategy for solid-phase oligosaccharide synthesis, no one, before the present discovery, had been able to implement such a strategy. In previous attempts to synthesize oligosaccharides on insoluble resins, the coupling yields were low and the stereochemical control was inadequate, particularly for the construction of .beta.-glycosidic linkages (i.e., 1,2-trans glycosidic linkages in which the glycosidic bond at the anomeric position of the sugar is trans to the bond bearing the sugar substituent at C-2).
These problems have been attributed to the fact that reaction kinetics on the solid phase are slower than they are in solution. (See, Eby and Schuerch, Carbohydr. Res. 1975, 39, 151.) The consequence of such unfavorable kinetics is that most glycosylation reactions, which may work reasonably well in solution, simply do not work well on a solid phase both in terms of stereochemical control and yield. Thus, for example, Frechet and Schuerch found that two glycosylation reactions, which both involve the displacement of an anomeric halide in the presence of a catalyst, gave predominantly the .beta.-anomer (i.e., the 1,2-trans product) in solution but gave mixtures on the solid phase. Frechet and Schuerch concluded that it would be necessary to use neighboring group participation to form .beta.-glycosidic linkages on the solid phase.
Again, however, it has been found that neighboring participating groups (NPGs) frequently deactivate glycosyl donors to the point that existing glycosylation methods could not be adapted to the solid phase. Frequently, glycosyl donors would decompose in the resin mixture before glycosylation can take place (See, Eby and Schuerch, Carbohydr Res. 1975, 39, 151). In some instances the resin has also been known to decompose due to the harshness of the conditions required for glycosylation. Furthermore, for many ester-type NPGs, there is a significant problem with acyl transfer from the glycosyl donors to the free glycosyl acceptors on the resin. This side reaction caps the resin and prevents further reaction.
Frechet has reviewed the problems encountered in trying to implement a strategy for solid-phase oligosaccharide synthesis (Frechet, Polymer-supported Reactions in Organic Synthesis, p. 407, P. Hodge and D. C. Sherrington, Eds., John Wiley & Sons, 1980). He has concluded that solid-phase oligosaccharide synthesis is not yet competitive with solution synthesis "due mainly to the lack of suitable glycosylation reactions."
There have been some efforts to overcome the unfavorable reaction kinetics associated with solid-phase reactions by using soluble resins. In the best example to date Douglas et al. used a soluble polyethylene glycol resin with a succinic acid linker and achieved 85-95% coupling yields using a glycosylation method known for over 80 years (the Koenigs-Knorr reaction) with excellent control of anomeric stereochemistry (Douglas, S. P.; Whitfield, D. M.; Krepinsky, J. J. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 1991, 113, 5095). Soluble resins may have advantages for some glycosylation reactions because they offer a more "solution-like" environment. However, step-wise synthesis on soluble polymers requires that the intermediate be precipitated after each step and crystallized before another sugar residue can be coupled.
Moreover, several additions of the same glycosylating reagent are typically required to push a reaction to completion. In the above case, for example, Douglas et al. had to repeat the same coupling reaction five times to achieve a high yield. Each repetition requires a precipitation step to wash the reagents away. Product may may be lost with each precipitation step. In addition, repeated precipitations make the process very time-consuming. Thus, the soluble resin approach to oligosaccharide synthesis fails to provide all the potential advantages associated with solid phase synthesis using insoluble resins.
A new method for glycosylation involving anomeric sugar sulfoxides was reported by Kahne and co-workers (Kahne, D. et al. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 1989, 111, 6881). The anomeric sugar sulfoxides were activated with equimolar amounts of triflic anhydride in the presence of a hindered base. The triflic anhydride-activated glycosyl donors proved to be quite reactive in solution and could be used to glycosylate extremely unreactive substrates under mild conditions. However, this report was limited to solution reactions, and there was no suggestion that solid-phase reactions could be carried out with any degree of utility.
Thus, the state of the art underscores the prevailing and unfullfilled need for a glycosylation method which provides for the rapid, efficient, and high yield synthesis of oligosaccharides. Moreover, an efficient synthesis of oligosaccharides on the solid phase has not been demonstrated which provides all the previously mentioned advantages of solid-phase methods.